Day 8 in Mumbai

Today is Sunday and I don’t have to work…well almost. I am staying at the Taj for the weekend and I planned to do some more shopping today.

Since I don’t have to go to work, my plan was to sleep until 7 or 8 in the morning and then breakfast and some fun activities. Great plan but didn’t quite work out that way. I was awakened at around 3 in the morning by my cell phone. One of my colleagues was to leave NY and come join me in Mumbai on Monday. He had trouble with his airline booking confirmation and they couldn’t find his reservation. We went back and forth for a couple of hours. It certainly didn’t help that the first guy behind the airline counter had no clue what he was doing. My colleague had to get the manager after 45 minutes with no result. At the end, my colleague had to take a later flight and a longer layover in London and will arrive in Mumbai 7-8 hours later than initially planned.

It was 6 by the time we were done and I went back to bed. I forgot that I had a wake up call at 7 with hot tea deliver to my room. Woke up at 7 but didn’t bother with drinking the tea and went back to bed. I got up at 9:15 with great difficulty. Couldn’t remember if Buffet breakfast open until 10 or 10:30 so I rushed to make sure I get there before 10.

I was planning to hangout with people from work today but since I didn’t get a call to confirm, I didn’t wait and set out on my own at 11am. (Turned out the guy and his wife had some family emergency and didn’t call me until late afternoon). I went to the Prince of Wales Museum. The entry fee is 300 rupees for foreginers that includes an audio tour. I didn’t take any pictures inside the museum but took a few outside. The museum has very good selection of arts and historic artifacts and worth the visit.

Then I went to the Colaba Causeway market again for some shopping. I stumbled upon an arts, crafts, and jewels store and spent many hours in there looking at so many different things. I ended up spending quite a bit of money for some very nice looking semi precious stone jewelery and crafts. The prices are not the cheapest but reasonable I believe. This store usually closes on Sunday but kept it open today because there is a cruise ship docked at the bay and they expected many tourists to come. My lucky day (or the store owners’ lucky day depending on how you look at it)!

Then, I went to McDonald’s for late lunch at 5pm. There are many restaurants and street vendors selling foods but I am not sure how clean they are or if I may get sick so I stick to the familiar foods. I saw McDonald’s and Subways, but have not seen Starbucks yet. I ordered 9-piece chicken nuggets and one-scope sundae for 140 rupees, that’s less than $3 with current conversion rate of $1 to 50 rupees.

I love to bargain even thought the price on most everything is very cheap when converted to US dollar. One vendor offers to sell me 1 pashamina or 1 large silk scarf for 500 rupees and 1 small silk scarf for 250 rupees. I ended up getting 4 pashaminas, 1 large and 2 small silk scarfs for 1700 rupees, and I gave an extra 100 rupees for good measure. That’s a total of $36!! I spent at least 10 minutes trying to get him to lower the price by a few bucks then I gave him more than what we agreed to. It’s the fun and satisfaction you get from what you want, not the money.

Now that I brought more stuff (although small in size), I have to figure out how to pack them all in my suitcase tomorrow because I am going home at last!!